


Stage

by WhiteLadyDragon



Series: Powerful Under the Edge [2]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Aging, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Character, Ay is a Tsundere, Bee is a Cinnamon Roll, Body Positivity, Canon Compliant, Dorks in Love, Empathy, Encouragement, Established Relationship, Existentialism, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Het, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Intimacy, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, Making Up, Mild Smut, Miscommunication, One-Sided Attraction, Past Abuse, Poetry, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Recovery, Regret, Romance, Secrets, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Indulgent, Self-Reflection, Slice of Life, Softcore Porn, Suicidal Thoughts, Trust Issues, Well maybe Bee isn't a PERFECT cinnamon roll but close enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25958356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteLadyDragon/pseuds/WhiteLadyDragon
Summary: Impressed with Aina's development as a poet, B arranges a recital for her and his friends, only for Aina to be stricken with stage fright at the last minute when he invites more people than they'd agreed on. A look into a day in her new life with him.DISCLAIMER! Except for original character Aina, all featured or mentioned fictional entities are from Masashi Kishimoto's manga series Naruto and Boruto. This fan fiction is written purely for entertainment and generates no profit whatsoever. The quote at the beginning is from the song "Take Care," by Drake and Rihanna. I make no money from this, either.
Relationships: Killer Bee/Original Female Character(s), Past Orochimaru (Naruto)/Original Female Character(s), Past Tsunade (Naruto)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Powerful Under the Edge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194965
Kudos: 10





	Stage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fenikkusu_Ai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenikkusu_Ai/gifts).



> Note that this story makes more sense if you’ve been following Aina’s story on my Tumblr roleplay blog, super-kame-love, as it contains numerous references and allusions to her official biography. Feel free to ask me about them! 
> 
> Note also that this is my first time writing B. Please forgive me if his dialogue isn’t up to snuff. Writing a character who is almost always rhyming is harder than it looks, even if he is supposed to be "bad" at rapping. But I love him anyway, and so does Aina! He just needs much more love all around! Speaking of love, pardon the lime at the end of this. I couldn't resist. I've found most of the smut he features in inside this archive to be rather distasteful and thus I sought to amend that as best I can. 
> 
> For reference, this oneshot takes place during the tail-end of the Blank Period. 
> 
> For Fenikkusu Ai. Happy Birthday! Have fun and be safe!
> 
> Take a listen to the song "Take Care" by Drake and Rihanna as or after you read this. It's practically B and Aina's song! In fact, here's a bonus: check out this whole playlist I made up for them! https://super-kame-love.tumblr.com/post/189222202471/baina-playlist

**_“I know you’ve been hurt by someone else._ **

**_I can tell by the way you carry yourself._ **

**_If you let me, here’s what I’ll do:_ **

**_I’ll take care of you.”_ **

**– Drake and Rihanna, “Take Care”**

...

B is a star. He has been a star for most of his life—or at least the parts of it that count to him—and he still is even now, with his receding hairline and the encroaching softness of his belly where firmness had once been, standing with her between the twilight of their forties and the dawn of their fifties. He lights up the world like he's stepping up on a stage. Aina, for most of hers, has been more of a stagehand, building the stage and caring for the stars among her so they could shine their brightest.

Tonight, for what may be the first time, at least in the literal sense, it’s her turn in the spotlight. For months, he’s been itching to host a recital, trying to convince her to share with the world some of the poetry she’d been crafting for the past few years.

No big crowds, she'd told him. Only a small one. Five people, _maybe_ ten. That's it. And she couldn't be the only poet presenting. Their friends would have to share some poetry of theirs, too. It didn't matter who he got to volunteer. She just couldn't be alone.

“Deal!” he’d said. “You can even go last! Well, _second_ to last.”

“Who’s goin’ last?” she’d asked, the answer already tingling in her bones.

B, jabbing both thumbs to his puffed-out chest, proudly announced, “Yours truly, baby! The best always goes last, yay!” He wasn’t wrong. Having rapped for just about his whole life, of course he’d be superior at weaving words into music.

“I thought you were goin’ first?”

B flashed a grin packed with all the sincerity and passion of a child. As always, the sight of it made her soft as they bumped fists. “I am! I’ll be first _and_ last. Start with a burst and end with a blast, yeah!”

It’s only fair that he should direct who’s going when and how many times. He’s doing most of the work organizing this get-together. No one else had been chomping at the bit for the role of opening act, anyway. Certainly not Aina.

The two weeks fly by a little quicker than she would have liked—time seems to fly so much faster as you get older, to the point where every minute slips away in half of one—and sure enough, Aina is peeking one eye out of the makeshift curtain they’ve strung across two accommodating ginkgo trees. Summer is in its final languishing stretch, gifting them with a partly cloudy, balmy night often associated with the Land of Lightning between summer and fall.

But the heat filling her full cheeks has, at best, only half to do with tonight’s weather.

Eyes. Too many eyes. Too many heads, too many mouths, too many voices. She can sense B coming up behind her. As she hastily draws the curtain shut, the maroon fabric kept gripped in her stiffening fists, she tosses a panicked look over her shoulder.

“Huh? Baby, what’s the matter? Your legs are shaking, and your face looks shattered.” he asks with a tilt of his head, like he doesn’t already know. And the thing is, he likely doesn’t. B lives with one foot in this world and the other in a world of his own. If it isn’t related to battle, he can be oblivious to details that don’t impact him directly. 

Aina lets one hand release the curtain to clutch at the long, thin keloid scar that stretches along the right side of her neck. Though it’s over a decade old, sometimes, like now, it throbs a dull throb. Usually when she panics. “B…I-I said jus’ five people! I said ten people a' most, di’n’ I? H-how many people you see out there, right now?” she whispers, the lisp in her speech strengthening as her tongue dabs at the gap in her mouth where a right front top tooth used to be.

B stands over her, which comes easy for him as he is a solid 27 centimeters over her head, and takes his turn to peek out of the curtain, his finger roving over the crowd as he rapidly counts under his breath. Then his posture snaps up straight.

“Oh sh— _forty-five!_ ” he exclaims with the grin he puts on when he can’t decide whether to be excited or nervous about a new development. As a man who’s performed in front of thousands in his career, sometimes to hundreds at a time (whether they’d asked him to or not), 45 is a pittance to him. He’s always preferred stadiums of crowds to small and intimate gatherings—the polar opposite of Aina’s tastes.

Not so long ago, she couldn’t even tolerate the small and intimate gatherings.

“45…45,” she repeats blankly, the low rumble of the audience’s casual conversation pricking her skin. “Forty-five…is much more th’n ten. Why d’we have forty-five people out there, B?”

“I _did_ invite only ten guests!” says B, his feet dancing beneath him as he holds out his hands like he’s scratching records. “B-but then I thought some of ‘em might cancel for this, that or some other…so just in case, I may’ve…er…asked around others?” He flinches all over at his own fumble. Rhyming a word with itself is one of the lamest things you can do.

“Looks like some of ‘em brought their own guests for the ride. My star power was too bright, too brilliant to hide…”

He’s not wrong about this, either. Even if not many people necessarily appreciate his rapping as much as they should (at least as far as Aina is concerned), they do still very much appreciate _him_. He’s a war hero, after all. Guardian of the Hidden Cloud and tag partner of the Fourth Raikage—AKA, his big brother A, who is currently standing at the refreshment table chatting with Darui, the Fifth Raikage and the current one. A shamelessly wolfs down one _onigiri_ after another, though he does stop to offer Darui one with his right hand—the one he still has. With a lazy smile, Darui declines, helping himself to some _taiyaki_ , instead. One of her personal favorites. The Fifth Raikage has good taste.

On Darui’s left and right flanks are C and Omoi respectively, his friends and bodyguards. She can see Omoi, always a worrier, wrinkle his nose at the punch in his cup. C tries to duck around to get a refill. Samui stands behind Darui with arms crossed as if waiting her turn, while her brother Atsui nudges Omoi in the ribs as he cracks a joke that may or may not be in good taste.

On the opposite side of the set, she spots Motoi helping Sabu into his specially reserved seat at the front. Sabu’s faithful raccoon companion, Ponta, now long in the tooth and with streaks of gray on his orange and brown face, lazes about next to his master, offering his snout as extra support his cane doesn’t provide.

B is still close to all of them, even if most of them are far busier than he is, these days. The ones who are still alive and still live here. Karui has long since moved to the Leaf to raise a family with Choji, though she still keeps in touch with B and her old teammates. Gaara and Naruto couldn’t have made it because of their own duties as Kage.

A blond boy sits cross-legged at the front and center. He’s got the same pair of blue horns tattooed to his left cheek like B does, as well as a pendant of Gyuki’s head hanging from his neck (the Tailed Beasts have surely become more popular over the years since the Fourth War). He’s even styled his hair to look like B’s. Yurui. She’s seen him around fairly often wherever B is. He chews his gum thoroughly in anticipation of seeing his hero. He definitely hasn’t come for her.

Aina blanches. “I—I thought we agreed they’d make res’rvations. You tellin’ me ev’rybody r’served a seat…a-an’ you didn’ tell nobody only _ten_ people were allowed here?”

“I-it woulda been rude to turn ‘em away. Plus…I ain’t seen mosta these peeps in forever and a day,” says B, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his neck.

Her stomach makes a knot. So is _she_ being the fool and the jerk, here?

Though she and B have known each other for two years now, it’s only been the last ten months of those since they’d started dating. Though she’s known everyone else for about the same length of time, bonding with them has taken all the effort of raising a garden from the first seeds, if not more. As it turns out, heritage alone doesn’t guarantee you’ll connect with a people, not if you were not raised with them or like them. There’s so much history between them and B she could never hope to catch up with, and past experience—not with them, with others—has squashed her desire to try, at least not so hard.

Who knows how much she’s set things back since she came out to A about her past? B, who of course she had told first, had taken it in stride, swearing it wouldn’t sway his mind or his heart. A had been far more skeptical, even after she insisted she hadn’t known Orochimaru yet before he’d made his cousin Blue B lose control of Gyuki, nor has she seen or spoken to him in the past thirteen years...and counting. For all she knows, A is only here for his little brother. He couldn’t care less if she performed or not.

Maybe she’ll always be an outsider in some way? That’ll be all right, as long as they can come to a mutual understanding…however long that takes.

But tonight, she can’t go out and talk to them. She can’t even seem to move from this spot behind the curtain. Her feet are stuck to the ground like she’s stepped in the glue B spilled earlier while making signs. The buzz of the crowd reminds her of a beehive, as B will affectionately refer to them, if not “his clan,” “peeps,” “brothers/sisters,” or “homies.”

Bees are friendly and helpful critters…until you get up in their hive uninvited.

If B couldn’t find the heart to reject anyone before, there’s no way he’d find it now. Everyone’s here, and they have come so far out of their way to be. She shakes her head. She tries to stop and take deep breaths, but they come in shallower.

The last time she’d performed to a crowd…had not gone over well. Granted, the context was different than this. An underground arena rather than the Raikage’s garden. A duel rather than a recital. A matter of life and death, of taking an overdue stand. But…

“I—I can’t do it,” she sputters. “I can’t go out there…”

“ _Awwww_ , but Kame! This is an important milestone in every artist’s life! I told everybody you were making your debut, and how you know it doesn’t fit if you don’t try on the suit?”

“We ain’t talkin’ ‘bout suits!” she snaps, both hands now releasing the curtain so her fists can now grab bunches of her own thick, curly hair. Her scalp burns. Every part of her burns like she’s stepped into a ring of fire closing in on her. “We talkin’ ‘bout you goin’-n-invitin’ all these folks when I very clearly asked you _not_ to! Th-th-they don’…they don’ care one damn bit about me! It’s _you_ they here for! Shucks! W-w-was this ever f’r me t’ start with? O-or was it more f’r _you?_ ”

For the longest time, there has only ever been two people in B’s life he would relent to: A first, Master Sabu second. For anyone else, even when he otherwise liked them, he would either cheerfully ignore them or dig in his heels and double down. Heaven help them if they were an enemy on the battlefield!

In recent times, Aina has shaped up to become the third person he’d forsake his stubbornness for. He stumbles backwards away from her, hands raised as if to make a shield. A bead of sweat condenses along his temple. “ _Ehhh_ , h-hold up, baby, how can you say that? Of course, everyone cares! I know when you come up to bat, you’ll knock ‘em outta their chairs, yay!”

“Y-you said yourself…you’re th’ best. That’s why you goin’ first _and_ last.”

He pauses. With his eyes always hidden behind dark sunglasses, one must look more to the rest of his face and body to gauge B’s thoughts and feelings. “But…I didn’t mean it _that_ way. I…you said…damn _fool! Ya fool!_ ”

“Hey. Is everything okay?”

She can’t tell if B is calling himself the fool, or her, or both, or neither. Whichever it is, the two turn to regard Motoi, who’s just stepped in from around the corner. He frowns, brow knit with concern. He must have overheard them arguing.

Killer B hastily flashes his friend a smile and the sign of the bull. “Oh yeah, yeah! They will be, Brother Motoi! We’re just, uh, having a disagreement. Wait one more minute then we’ll get right in it, whee!” Honest, yet insistent on solving the problem himself. That’s how B is.

“Oh. A personal matter…sorry to intrude.” With a light blush dusting his cheeks, Motoi returns to the crowd to give them much-needed space. Once he’s out of sight, B exhales and lowers his voice, his hand back on the nape of his neck. His long cloud-blond locks drape over his wrist. His other hand extends to her, palm up.

“A’ight, look…how about you take a break back here? I’ll come check on you when your turn gets near. If you still don’t feel up to it by then…you don’t have to go on, dear. I'll make up an excuse that'll stand. They do care, so I'm sure they'll understand. Okay?”

All Aina can manage for a reply is two stiff nods of her head, and the rocking of her whole body as she hugs herself. If B wants to stop the argument, she wants it to end doubly so. The show must go on, with or without her.

Despite his disappointment, he gives her that gentle smile he reserves for her. “Okay,” he repeats, this time as an affirmation, in a hushed voice he only uses with her. He leans in to touch her left cheek, put his lips to her brow. His beard and the light raspberry he blows on her skin tickle her. The next thing she knows, B is shedding his black vest so he can drape it over her shoulders like a blanket, leaving him shirtless.

All things considered, he’s still quite handsome for his age, in a rugged way. Even feral. Aina sees this, at least. If she wasn’t so upset, she may have paused to drink in the look of his torso, how his rich brown skin shimmers a soft golden orange in the haze of dusk.

She takes after Mama in so many ways, she supposes. Including this one. After all, if Mama hadn’t found Papa handsome despite his age, Aina wouldn’t exist. Except the gap in years between herself and B is much, much smaller compared to that between Mama and Papa.

No one will find it odd that B is suddenly topless. B was never one to cover his chest to start with, and it’s customary for rappers to go without shirts, especially if they’re getting hot and deep into their verses. As if he fears breaking her, he reaches around to press a tentative hand on the small of her back, guiding her to the small hollow within the roots of one of the older gingko trees. Though her legs are still shaking, she lets him, appreciating the new distance from the crowd.

Once she’s sat down, he hands over her notebook bound shut with a rubber band, the one where she keeps her sketches and poetry. “Will you be okay here by yourself?”

“Yep…d-don’ let ‘em make too much noise,” she murmurs, staring down at his toes as she takes it from him.

“I won’t.” B normally can’t get enough noise. For Aina, he makes an exception. “Don’t forget to keep breathin’. Call me if you’re needin’.”

With a light brush of his callused fingers through her curls, B shuffles away to join his— _their_ friends. He’d rather talk things over right away, but there’s no time, and she needs the space to cool down.

She pulls out her rose quartz, rubs circles into her thumb as she lets its rest in her palm, imagining its bright, cool pink color seeping into her skin and through her arm until it pools in her chest, filling the cracks and soothing the aches in her heart she’d thought would have left by now.

 _B is a good person._ She repeats this in her head, and under her breath, over and over, ashamed that she even still has to do it at all, after all this time of knowing him. He hadn’t meant anything malicious by any of this. There has never been a drop of malice or deceit behind his words or actions. He just gets ahead of himself too easily, and sometimes his ego, hungry for attention, gets in the way.

It’s…really not so different from the way she used to be, is it?

Maybe he really _did_ just put this on so he could see as much of his peeps as he can in one place again? Yes, he may be a show-off, but that in itself isn’t a crime. Just because someone else she used to know was one and got people hurt when he did it doesn’t mean it’s a crime.

She shifts the quartz to her right hand to let it rest in that palm instead. Now alone, Aina takes more breaths, timing them with the tide from memory, then pulls off the band and turns each dog-eared page with her left hand for a poem palatable to both her and them. So many verses…all written by her own hand in a scrawled mashup of words and doodles only she can read.

There are plenty of rhymes and verses about nature and the things they've both gotten up to. The beach, the forest, the sunrise, the sunset, Genbu, the sea turtles' nests hatching in the moonlight, the twin giant panda cubs she and B had helped deliver after saving the mother from a storm last spring…to end up nursing the smaller of the two after the mother abandoned it the next morning. B had said pandas often did that when they had twins because they could only nurse one. No, it wasn't fair, but the pandas "aren't evil just 'cause they're so selective of their care."

Intellectually, she'd understood that. How could she not, after all the years she'd spent alone in nature and then some? She'd nursed her share of injured and orphaned animals. Animals, though somewhat easier to understand, were still no saintlier than people. It's a mistake to think otherwise; it always has been. Still, the smallest part of her that hadn't callused over against all odds had wanted to scream and tear off her own skin at the stark injustice of it. She had only calmed upon taking a step back to reflect on her own choices. After all the things she's gotten up to, between the Sound and her wandering with the scaly, bug-eyed, ravenous face of a _kappa_ as her mask...what had made her any better than that panda, really?

What are people but animals with the luxury to ponder their contradictory lives?

_I watch you, little pink one, latch on the bottle, your feast_

_Am I human or am I another beast?_

_Does it even matter? I can't tell them apart too well anymore_

Instead of making any more fuss, she'd resolved to let it go, to channel her energies into helping B give the cub the care and compassion he had deserved. That's all anyone can really do, is it? Make this world just a tiny bit less cruel, whether it works out or not. Though last they've heard, the cub—Eiji, they'd named him—is thriving in the sanctuary they'd sent him off to when they could no longer care for him.

Here’s a verse she wrote based on a thought she’d had about A as they’d all sat down one day for lunch.

_I look at the empty sleeve_

_Where your left arm and hand used to stay_

_And I wonder if you’d still have them_

_If I kept him from going astray_

She sucks in her lips. Nope. Not this one.

A has long since forgiven Sasuke for his transgressions…but it hadn’t come easy to him. A, in general, is slow to forgive, though according to B, he has in fact mellowed since the Fourth War. B had assured her that A would come around in time, assuming there was even anything to forgive in the first place. She’d had nothing to do with Blue B’s death, and it wasn’t as if she’d driven Sasuke to seek revenge against the whole world.

Here’s another verse she’d come up with after seeing Sakura make the news yet again on a medical breakthrough.

_You are the cherry blossom who bloomed in adversity_

_She is the mighty tree that held you up,_

_Carrying the brilliant fire of the sun on her arms_

_I was a tiny weed cowering under her shade_

_You floated down to me with the sun on your petals_

_And a touch like a healing spring_

_And I slipped away_

_Please don’t cry for me_

_I don’t deserve it_

_Float farther, higher,_

_So you may grow into a tree of your own_

A sad smile flickers through her lips. She hadn’t even bothered with rhyming for that one. Not that poetry has to always rhyme or follow a fancy structure for it to be so.

Tsunade had gotten honorable mention as her mentor, Ino as her collaborator…and in a twist, so had Kabuto. The Leaf had taken him back after the war, and since then, he’s proven to be a valuable and fairly reliable ally. Nono must be smiling down from Heaven to see him continue her work, despite having lost his way for so long.

Of course she’d give credit where it was due. That was the kind of woman Sakura had grown up to be: strong, yet humble enough to mind the people who had helped her to grow.

Over yonder, Sabu is sharing a new _enka_ song with the audience, as passionate and teary-eyed as most of his songs are. She knows this because she can hear it in his voice, cracked as it’s since become in his old age. She doesn’t catch everything he says—only because her attention is concentrated on her notes and her breath and the quartz in her palm—but from what she does hear, he’s singing about his bond with Ponta, who he’s known since the latter was a cub. Sabu had raised him, actually, having found him all alone in the dense forests that grow on Genbu’s shell.

Ponta, of course, growls and wheezes along in harmony. With how old they both are now, who can say for sure how much more time the pair have in this world? Hopefully at least ten more years. Yet, if Sabu’s lyrics are honest—and they always have been—it sounds like they could be called to Heaven tomorrow and they’d be fine with that…as long as they can go together.

Sniffing, Aina stops to wipe the tears from her burning eyes on her wrist. Every year, her hands look more like Mama's. Every year, her feet look more like Papa's. The first silver streaks have already spiraled into some of her wild deep brown curls. Her eyes sport sparrow's feet around the corners, the lines on her brow and either side of her mouth trailing along her dark brown skin like tiny canyons etched by the graceful hands of time.

Not that she has any desire to hide these like Tsunade would. Her body had always been resistant to all but gradual change on its own terms, and having spent twelve years at sea with only the turtles and other animals as companions, she’d lost reason to care so much about vanity anymore—which, perhaps ironically, has made it easier to dress in the morning. If she bothers to put on clothes at all, that is. 

Getting older in itself had never really been the problem, had it? It was the uncertainty that came with it. The loneliness, the regrets, the irrefutable reminder that nothing is permanent and there’s never enough time to do all the things you want to do with all the people you love…even when you know what, and who, those all are. Men didn’t want an older wife because they were too afraid to face their own mortality, unaware that time doesn’t mold everyone in the same way.

Yet time is fair in one way. It doesn’t stop for anyone. Not even people like Tsunade. Or Orochimaru.

Nowadays, she finds herself regarding every new wrinkle and silver hair with awe. Even the hot flashes and stiffness in her hands and ringing in her ears are cause for celebration (that is, when they stay out of her way!). That she’s still alive is nothing less than a miracle. 

Toward the back of the book, she finds this poem about the village’s famous clouds.

_The sky wraps its strong grey arms round the mountains_

_They loosen but never stray through the years_

_The thunder is its laughter, the lightning its blows,_

_The rain its cleansing tears_

_You see the clouds as sanctuary_

_I see them as salvation_

_They know my name,_

_Though they are strangers to me_

_My blood pounds with their command: Live! Live! Live!_

_As I stand in the middle of the sea,_

_Our cradle and our grave_

_And wait for Death to rise from the depths_

_With its arms promising eternal sleep_

_Outstretched in the waves_

_Its fingers brushing my face in the foam_

_Like they used to do with theirs_

Aina purses her lips. Too personal. And…too dark. They’re surely not going to want to hear a poem about how she links their thunderstorms with the one she’d sailed into the day she’d tried to drown herself. How on earth did she come up with this?

The event this poem is based on happened so long ago, well before she’d met B. To think that if Manami hadn’t found her out there on the boat when she had, to think that if she hadn’t cared enough to shield her from the wind and waves despite aching with the eggs of her unborn children, when Aina herself had stopped caring about staying alive in that moment…

…she wouldn’t be here, tonight. 

That wasn’t even the first time she’d faced Death. Hardly. In fact, over half the times, she’d sought its audience personally. She’s also seen it in Orochimaru’s blazing yellow eyes, bloodshot with all the cruel fury of a territorial serpent as he beat her to the ground and slashed her neck, all while the others looked on. The whole time, they did and said not one damn thing to stop him or help her.

All because she’d challenged him to an election…and perhaps some other things less directly to do with her.

_I wrapped your coils cool and white_

_Round me as I fell apart_

_Maybe it was too big for you?_

_That’s why you couldn’t eat my heart_

_It beats with a poison of its own_

_I hid it well, had it down to an art_

Only Sasuke, who had come late to the scene, bothered to jump in and break it up…but it was just to scold Orochimaru for wasting time they could be spending on his training. In hindsight, it had been an excuse to save face, another attempt to prove himself heartless enough to fulfill his purpose as avenger. He just couldn’t admit he hadn’t yet closed himself off enough to look the other way.

Why Orochimaru had spared her instead of committing to the kill—after all, Sasuke wouldn’t be around to protect her again—will always be a mystery. One she’s long since lost interest in solving. She doesn’t expect most people to understand, but she had truly loved him. Even after doing what she’d done to him. She wouldn’t have tried so hard to appeal to his better side for so long if she hadn’t.

Did he ever love her back? Was he even capable of love?

Who knows? Maybe, if he was, his was a sick rudiment of love, one that bit and bruised and mangled and strangled and poisoned everyone it touched before it devoured their hearts?

But that’s not her problem, anymore. Hasn’t been in years. It’d stopped being her problem after he’d made it clear he wouldn’t change course. How lucky is she to still have hers, even if it’s been beaten so many times!

Some would say they wouldn’t have worked out, anyhow. She’s Type A. He was Type B. Their incompatibility had worked out in her favor, in the end. 

Then again, B is Type, well, B, too. They’ve been getting along so much better. As long as no one asks her to give him blood, they’ll be all right.

The audience claps for Motoi, who’s up next. Quietly, as B has requested on her behalf. He’s going to have a hard time topping B and Sabu’s performances, for sure. Poetry is more their thing, but that’s no reason to join in on the fun.

She takes a handful of B’s vest and inhales the fabric. As expected, it smells like him, of the forest with splashes of the cologne he puts on for shows. Watermint and bergamot, with juniper, ginger, thyme and vetiver. B still likes to indulge in the finer things, now and then. It’s one of the few things he’s conservative about, dabbing on just enough to smell nice without being overpowering. He’s plenty overpowering on his own merit.

The must, sweat, metal and blood flashing through her nostrils just moments before vanishes. The faces disappear from the shadows cascading from the trees as the sun sinks down, painting the sky violet and pink. The strings of filtered lights they’ve hung over the curtains and around the tables flicker on. B doesn’t like bright lights. They hurt his eyes, as loud noises hurt her ears. That’s why he always wears shades. That they fit into his aesthetic is a bonus.

Speaking of B, she spots him ducking around the curtain to face her again, face stretched with a grin and flushed with exhilaration for all the verses everyone has shared so far, including his own. He dances up to her, arms bouncing in front of him to keep balance. Once he reaches her, he kneels, a hand reaching her head to support his weight against the tree. “Yo. Feel any better?” he asks, in that same hushed voice from before. 

“A l’il,” she mumbles, pressing the rose quartz to her breastbone with another sniff. Closing the notebook, she sets it in her lap to dry her eyes on her wrist once more. “But…I still don’ think I c’n go on.” All of her poetry is either too light or two dark. And she still feels too drained to stand on stage. Another wave of heat crashes through her face, and her stomach flops. “I’m sorry, B.”

It wouldn’t be the first time she’s let someone down.

Though unable to mask his disappointment—with the way he grunts and how the corners of his lips twitch, he probably knew she was going to say that but had hoped to be wrong regardless—B extends his fist to her. “Nah. If either of us should say sorry, it’s me. I shouldn’t have pushed you, though I thought you might be ready. I really wanted to see you show off your chops. But if you wanna try this again later, whenever you want, I know they’ll be tops.

“And…maybe you’re right, yo? Maybe I _did_ kinda do this more for myself? So let’s put this back on the shelf. Next time, you can call all the shots, baby.”

Despite herself, a giggle bubbles up from the bottom of her throat. Pulling his vest tighter around herself, she wraps the quartz and tucks it into her pocket. “Tops? Y’mean as good as yours?”

“Yeah! But in a different way. Heaven and Earth are as different as can be, but neither is worse or better, y’see.”

“Heehee…lemme guess. I’m Earth. An’ you’re Heaven.”

“Heh. It fits you. Heaven? Yo, I like the sound of that, too.”

She bumps fists with him, and instantly a new feeling seeps through her from his knuckles to hers. It’s soft and warm, like she’s being cradled in a bubble bath and his arms. Whether it’s something he has planned for later or just a fantasy is unclear, but it summons a fresh swell of tears in her eyes and makes her chest swell with a fresh bloom of love, tender as the petals of a plum blossom. Or a lotus. This is how he feels about her. Even after all the foolishness earlier.

It takes her a moment to recognize what this is. Carelessness notwithstanding, B is an empath of sorts. He can read people’s hearts by bumping fists with them and share his own thoughts and feelings with them. He probably couldn’t do this earlier because they had mutually upset each other with their arguing. It’s shaped him into an excellent judge of character.

Which is why he’d given her a chance when she’d approached him the very first time. She had only been looking for friendship, then. That and a new perspective on poetry and life, or perhaps an old one to revisit with clearer eyes. The seeds of attraction had planted and sprouted on their own.

Perhaps, without her realizing it, he’d glimpsed into her heart all these times they’ve bumped fists? Maybe he’d figured out her past long before she’d ever decided to bring voice to it?

Does he know about the parts she _hasn’t_ told him about?

If he does, why hasn’t he said anything? Unless he’s waiting on her to tell her stories in her own time…

Had this been anyone else who could see through her, she’d probably be more terrified. But he’s still here.

How does someone once shunned by his own people for something he hadn’t asked for grow up to be so kind and loving? Suppose one could ask Naruto the same question.

The answer, at least for B, is on the other side of the curtain. Who knows if they will become the answer to Aina’s questions, as well? But maybe they can at least point her in the right direction?

Soon, the two are pressing foreheads together. “Ha…it's so p'culiar. I c'n brave th' sea…an' all kindsa fears'me beasts…an' Orochimaru…an' th' snakes at Ryuchi Cave—same snakes that were gon' eat me if I wasn' careful…but I can't share poetry in front of a friendly crowd.”

"Someday you'll find a way. It'll happen, even if not today." He nuzzles the tip of her nose with his own, the way some of the animals on Genbu do when greeting their mates. "You think you'll be able to join us for the after-party, at least?" Of course, there'd be a reception. When B plans an event, he goes all out. Anything to have everyone together for a little longer.

This isn’t the Leaf, and it certainly isn’t the Sound. This is the Cloud. If B trusts them, then she should consider trusting them more, too. They’d never hurt her on purpose…and perhaps they would help her if she was in trouble?

She nods, a little more relaxed this time. “I’m keepin’ this on,” she says, bunching his vest around her blushing face.

B smiles against her lips as he plants a kiss on them that makes her toes curl. “Looks good on you,” he whispers. He pulls her back up onto her feet and cuffs his hand around hers as they walk around the curtain, just as Motoi concludes his verse, a tribute to his late father, to a round of warm applause.

As they pass, B again flashes him a grin of approval and the sign of the bull with his free hand (“Yeah, right on! Give it up for my man Motoi!” he calls, unable to resist, though he quickly hushes up when he sees Aina flinching at the noise), to which Motoi responds with a shy smile and a hand on the back of his head. Clearing his throat, he bows and says: “Er, thank you. Thank you for listening, everyone.”

To think Motoi had once tried to kill B in their youth, his judgment warped by his grief and anger. His father had been killed during one of Gyuki’s rampages, the same one that had cost Blue B his life. If he and B can save their friendship from something like that, who can say for sure what is and isn’t possible?

B doesn't let go of her hand until he ushers her into a seat in the very back as she asks for, but it's the last one next to A. The older brother regards them both with a raised eyebrow and remaining arm resting along the back of his chair but says nothing. His hairline has receded even more than B's has, to the point of baldness around the top of his head.

They look so alike and act so close that it's hard to believe they're not tied by blood. Well, they _are_ tied by blood—just not that of the womb. She just wishes A didn't have to hit B every time he does something foolish. Not that she'd ever had one of her own, but siblings oughtn't hurt each other for any reason. After watching Sasuke and Itachi, she doubts anything can change her mind about that.

B stops to bump fists with his brother before he rushes up to the stage to take the last turn, leaving Aina to look at A. What should she say to him, if anything at all? If he could forgive Sasuke and Kabuto for their transgressions, surely he can give her a chance?

A must notice her staring at him, because he glances over with narrowed eyes. “What? I got somethin’ on my face?”

“Ah…nope. I’s jus’…thinkin’.”

What silence falls between them is ripped to shreds as B decides to close the recital with an impassioned tribute of his own, this one dedicated to everyone who is no longer with them in this world. Mabui, Yugito, Blue B, “Pops” (AKA, the Third Raikage, A’s father and B’s adopted father). Aina swears she can see A’s dark eyes shining with what can only be tears. It would seem the years haven’t completely numbed the pain of loss for any of them. Though she never got to know any of the friends and family B weeps for on the stage, she aches nevertheless. She’s lost her share of precious people, too. Some to death. Others to…other things. Some of it her own fault.

From where she sits, B looks like he’s dancing on top of everyone’s heads. Clutching her notebook to her stomach, she waits for B to finish and the audience applauds—indeed, she can distinctly hear lumps in some of their throats as they praise him for the tribute (if more so the intent of it than the structure or actual lyrics, not that they say that aloud).

As the commotion dies down, A speaks up once more: “You didn’t go up.”

“Huh? Oh. Y-yep. I mean, nope. I didn’t. I…wasn’ feelin’ well. Came on, all of a sudd’n,” says Aina, flapping her feet against the ground while the fingers on her left hand drum along the knuckles on her right.

“Stage fright?”

“…reckon so,” she answers, seeing no reason to not tell the truth. Or at least as much as A needs to know. “Couldn’ get over it in time.”

“Hrm. That’s too bad. B really hyped you up.”

She sucks in her lips and bows her head, hugging herself tighter. “Y-you were lookin’ for’d t’ it, too? Here I been reck’nin’ y’only came for B…”

“I did come mostly for him,” A says with a shrug. “But he said you’ve been comin’ up with all this interesting material. On the edgy side. Couldn’t help but be curious. But hopefully there’ll be a next time, right?”

The smile crossing her face is small and uneasy, and a new wave of heat fills her face. “Well, ah…you _are_ a Gemini. It’s in your nature t’ be curious ‘bout ev’rything, even if you don’ always act like it…”

The right corner of his mouth and mustache quirk upward in a smirk, briefly flashing one of his pointed canines. A is feral, too, in his own way. “I still say that star stuff is bullshit, but that’s just another thing we’re gonna keep disagreeing on.”

Aina frowns. Her papa had taught her just about everything she knows about astrology. But he’d also taught her that there will always be non-believers who deserved as much respect as she did. “As a Taurus, I r’serve my right t’ stick t’ my b’liefs. An’ there will be a nex’ time. Can’t tell you when it’ll be, but there’ll be one.”

…

…

…

…

“I don’t hate you, you know.”

“What?” Half of her confusion rises from the current of people swelling around them as they break for one more round of snacks and catching up. The other half is pure disbelief.

“Don’t you clean out your ears? I said I don’t hate you. You seem to think I do, but I don’t. You’re weird and annoying and overly sensitive, and I do find your past sketchy…what you’ve said about it so far, at least…but I don’t _hate_ you. I mean, my little brother is weird and annoying in his own right. You match him well in that regard. And since you came along, B…well, he hasn’t been climbing the walls as much as he used to.”

A pauses to look at his brother, who is currently posing with Yurui and his two friends, Tarui and Toroi, while an always helpful Atsui holds up one of those newfangled phones all the youngsters are walking around with, these days. It must belong to one of the three.

B stands behind them with his arms crossed over his chest and mouth gaping the endearing way it does when he shouts _“Yeeeeah!”_ , flashing the sign of the bull with both hands. All three genin look pink in the face like a squeal is bubbling in all their throats, but naturally they keep their faces as straight and cool as they can, allowing only smirks to cross them, if that. It’s unfashionable, at least to the new generation, to let your excitement get the better of you, even when you’re taking pictures with your idol. 

Yurui isn’t chewing anymore. From the way his eyes have widened, he must have swallowed his gum in shock at his fortune.

A's expression softens, matching the soft ache in her own spirit. She used to be close to the children from her old village, or as close as she could be. When she'd disappeared from the Leaf for the second and final time, she had left to them all but a handful of her earthly possessions, including her farm. 

Now they've all grown up and moved on without her. Some of them have even had children of their own. Do they ever think of her? Would it make her happy to know they did?

Maybe that’s why she’s been so hesitant to talk to the young ones here? It’s one of the reasons, at least.

“I gotta admit, it’s impressive that you can make him pipe down just like that.”

A has always had a gruff personality. This is likely the closest she’ll ever get to compliments from him. That he’s opening up like this to her at all, with no apparent prompting, has her sitting erect in her chair, her mouth briefly forming an “O”. Some days, like this one, she worries she might be burdening B, instead.

“Um…thank you,” she answers at last with a blink, scratching the tip of her nose. “B’s a good man…an’ you’re a good man, too. When you wanna be.”

A puffs out his chest slightly. “Hm. Well, anyway, if that’s all ancient history you’re done with like you say, then there’s little else to worry about going forward. And if it isn’t…it’ll all come out in the wash.”

“Ah…”

Evidently, that will be the extent of their sharing for tonight, because A pushes himself up from his seat. “C’mon. The snack table is clearing.”

“Aha! You still hungry? Jus’ a while ago I done seen you gobblin’ _onigiri_ like it was goin’ outta style!”

“Wha’d’ya want from me? I’m still training,” he huffs. “Being retired ain’t an excuse to get outta shape. I need all the protein and carbs I can get.”

Clutching her notebook to her chest now, she pulls B’s vest back around herself and gets up to follow him to B, who’s already waiting for them with Sabu and Motoi at his flanks. Ponta towers over all of them, nearly knocking the tables over as he sniffs what’s left of the refreshments and tries to lick them up.

**…**

It’s not that they don’t _want_ sex. She just hasn’t been ready for go all the way, yet. They’ve been taking it nice and slow. Testing the waters, metaphorically and, in this case, literally. They’ve got nothing but time since the world has found peace (…for now, at least).

Six months ago, she couldn’t even let B put his mouth or hands near her neck, especially the right side where her scar trails, though she’d had no good reason to believe he could or would hurt her. Now, as B had shown her through his fist bump, they’re soaking in the bath, their bare bodies speckled with suds from the “bath bomb” B had dropped in the water. Jasmine, sandalwood, and ylang-ylang. For relaxation, and romance.

He's got her between his legs and resting against his chest. While she massages his thighs, then his calves, rubbing soap up and down them, he has his own hands running up and down her curves, love handles and pudgy stomach. Occasionally, he pauses to trace soap along the scars along her trunk and then the long, thin keloid along her right forearm with his fingers like he's painting them, memorizing their patterns and texture.

He lingers the longest along her breasts, shivering as he cups each mound, sagging and stretch marks and tentacle burns and all, in either of his palms. For as long as anyone who knows him well can remember, he's had a fascination with breasts…not that she can blame him. They are amazing, and the women and others who own them even more so. Though in private, Aina has pondered at least once if it has anything to do, unconsciously, with the mother he never knew. His attention, after all, has always been fixed on older women.

Like Tsunade, someone over whom they’ve both fawned from afar at one point or another…and sometimes still might to this day, in a moment of weakness. It’s more complicated for Aina, who had parted with her on such bitter terms all those years ago. She realizes now that they share blame in the destruction of their bond, and maybe it’s best for both of them that they leave each other alone.

But none of that matters, anymore. Now he’s got a pair for him and him alone to dote on. He stares down pink as an apricot as he carefully squeezes her nipples to watch them rise for him. 

With a smile and a sigh, Aina leans more into him, resting her head just beneath his right shoulder. Her left hand rises dripping from the bath to stroke his face and beard. The left side, with his tattoo of horns.

His hair tickles her knuckles, drips across her fingers. He’s so warm and cozy, and at best, the bath has only half to do with that.

This…is bliss.

Who knows if she’ll be able to progress to a new level of comfort from here, or if she’ll stay put, or even regress? Healing isn’t always as straightforward as one thinks it should be, not like the healing of a flesh wound into a scar.

But she’ll put all that to rest, for now.

“B?” she hums, her teeth flirting with her bottom lip at every tingle his touch sends her.

“Yeah, shawty?” he purrs back, shifting in place. Or rather, it’s the sort of pseudo-purring he does when he gets uncomfortable but keeps trying to play it smooth. It doesn’t escape her notice that he’s moving his hips away from hers, and when his back hits the tub, he scoots her upward by the hips as subtly as he’s able.

Before she asks her original question, she wonders if she should help him with that. She’s still not ready for intercourse. But surely there are other ways…?

She shakes her head. “Y’reckon my poetry’s gettin’ too…dark?”

“Too dark? I have noticed it’s getting more personal lately. But if you’re speaking from the soul, then what does it matter, whee?”

Aina resumes brushing the side of his face, from his hair, to his temple, to his cheek, to his jaw, to his beard, down his neck. Every shake her fingers arouse from him sends a spark of glee through her.

To think that years ago, she had believed she was undesirable, unlovable. The ones she had loved before had given her so many reasons to believe it, whether they’d meant to or not. It was chasing the notion that she was in fact worthy of giving and receiving love in earnest that put her on the path that would cross with B’s. A leap of faith.

B isn’t one to focus his verses much on dark subjects, despite his life and career. At best, he skirts around them, preferring instead to sing about the good life, and how awesome he is. She can't help but find something a bit incongruent about this, given how he's been through so much more than she. Had she not known better now, she might have found it shameful to know he hadn’t let life break him while she’d let it break her—at least for a while.

She isn’t B. B isn’t she. For all they've found to have in common, they are still ultimately different people who have led different lives. It’s not her place to question what he should rap about, any more than it’s his right to dictate her poetry even if he’d had the inkling.

“Ah, it’s jus’ that…seems all my poems’re either too simple, or too d’pressing. I didn’ wanna d’but with a poem that was no good.”

“The only person who can really say if your poems are good enough is you, yay. If you don’t believe in it, believe no one else will. If you need other people to tell you it’s good, even when they do, you’ll be unhappy still. Fool, ya fool!”

That’s right. Just like how the only person with any real say on what your life is worth, if anything, is you.

She shuts her eyes, shifting so her cheek rests on his breastbone and she can feel his heartbeat fluttering on her skin. He and Gyuki share the same body; does that mean she’s feeling Gyuki’s heartbeat, as well? “So…I oughta treat my poetry like it’s my life. Aw, shucks! My life _is_ my poetry, ain’t it? I mean, my life’s what my poetry’s about.”

B beams down at her, nods, and takes his turn to brush his knuckles along her cheekbone with the tenderness of a butterfly’s steps. “I could tell you you’re beautiful, and smart, and strong, and one o' the baddest bitches I know—and you _are_ all those things, for sure—but that would all be empty static if you didn’t believe it yourself, yo.”

Long ago, she may have had a bigger problem with the swearing (and the word “bad”), having been called a “bitch” in a negative context more than once before by others. But words can have more than one meaning, a fact of life that she is admittedly still making peace with. You can take the same words used to tear down and turn them into uplifting ones, just as a kunai knife can be used either to stab between the ribs or to print snug holes into the earth for seeds. Or how a hammer can be used to either build a home or smash open a skull.

“Monster” is another such word. One they're both uncomfortably intimate with, though for different reasons. 

His way with words, however clumsy or smooth it can get, is one of the myriad things about him that make her love him so much.

Shifting again to face him more from the front, the water and suds splashing lightly against the tub, Aina drops two kisses on his chest. One for him, the other for Gyuki if he wants it.

B snorts with laughter, tickling her ribs.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, peering up at him.

"Aw, nothin'. Gyuki's just bein' a shy guy. You got 'im all embarrassed, 'cause you're that fly."

She pulls him into an embrace, one that he quickly and eagerly returns, and imagines the two melting together in a garden of their own, of jasmine and ylang-ylang and lotus flowers. The two of them are a lot like lotuses, aren’t they? Rising from the muck and darkness, clean and bright with petals open in greeting.

B’s are, anyway. Hers are just starting to reopen.

It’s this stream of thought that reminds her of a dream she’d had the other night and pulls a new poem from the depths of her mind. With not a drop of hesitation from before, she pours it out to him.

_“I fell asleep at th’ bott’m_

_Th’ waters my blank’t_

_Th’ mud an’ sand my pillow_

_I couldn’ face th’ cruel world or th’ people anymore,_

_Too heavy t’ rise fr’m my pain and woe_

_One day I woke t’ th’ glimmers’a dawn_

_Pokin’ through th’ darkn’ss in ripples_

_Th’ turtles, like ang’ls, over me glided_

_Nudgin’ me,_

_T’ward th’ surf’ce they guided_

_I don' know why or how I swam_

_Maybe I jus’ got tired o’ bein’ tired?_

_Whatever it was, I tore through th’ depths_

_Th’ air dry and cold as I_

_Gasped f’r breaths_

_Th’ pieces’a my broken heart others had tossed_

_Hung in th’ purple sky like stars_

_I picked ‘em all like plums as I followed ‘em_

_N-not noticing they were pointin’ me_

_To th’ east where the sun rose_

_Atop a turtle bearin’ a world of its own…_

_An' there you were, my love,_

_Th' sun in your skin an' a k’leidoscope in your eyes,_

_An octopus-man named B._

“Ahaha…heeheehee…that’s all I got, right now. I-I can’t d’cide if you should be th’ octopus or th’ sun…I mean, t’ me, you’re kinda like…both. In my dream,” she murmurs, woozy from the bath, the floral, woody scent of the bubbles, and the tears rolling down her face.

One of the nicest things about their relationship is they can be as emotional and vulnerable with each other as either of them can get, in all the ways they know how to express it, without fear or judgment…something that, if she’s honest, she never really had with the other two. Even when she thought she did, or could.

True, she hasn’t told B everything. Only Manami has had the privilege of hearing all her secrets. She’s not sure if or when or how she will tell him the rest. But oh, he makes her want to!

Sure enough, if Aina’s tears fall like rain down her cheeks, B’s stream down his like the waterfall outside his house—well, _their_ house, now. “Oh, Kame!” he sobs, pulling her back into his arms.

“Oh B, I love you so much!” she cries back, all tuckered out with poetry for the night. Sometimes it’s better to just get to the heart of things. “I’m so glad I stayed! I’m so glad I found you a’tall…even if I’s late.”

“Me too, me too! I love you times eight!”

They cling to each other like the jasmine whose fragrance fills their steaming bathroom, breathing each other's air, tasting the salt lining their faces and their mouths through the kisses they share. Another great thing about their bond is how delightfully physical they both are. If it explains anything, they _are_ both Taurus people.

At last they break apart to press foreheads and chests together. Now that she's back up against his hips and thighs, something hard presses more firmly along hers. She gasps and B grins more bashfully at her, the apricot color returning to his cheeks. He can no longer hide his excitement. That she's the only one these days who makes him feel this way, exactly as she is, is enough to pull a moan from her throat.

Orochimaru had laughed at her when she'd tried to give him her whole self. A mistake on her part to try, maybe, but that he couldn't take her as she was was his own fault more than it was hers. It always had been. Tsunade had pushed her away for less, when she'd tried to kiss the former that night in front of her house.

She could be the loveliest lotus in the pond and that wouldn't mean a thing to someone who liked lilies…or someone who didn't like flowers of any kind. Fortunately, B loves whatever flower she might be.

“I…forgot to mention your sexiness,” B pants, fingers entwining with hers. After pausing for a moment, he stops to mumble around the top of her ear, “B-but don’t think we gotta do anything jus’ ‘cause I’m a mess…”

Aina giggles, pressing her breasts more snugly against him as she admires, again, the bow shape of his dusky lips. “Well now, I…I don’ think I’m quite ready yet t’ have you inside me. But I reckon there’s somethin’ else we c’n do, darlin’. ‘Nother way I c’n treat you. F'r us t' make love.”

Not that she wouldn’t have wanted to do it if it hadn’t happened, but it’s also the least she can do for the argument that had almost derailed the recital. A peace offering.

She can’t help but smile as he trembles at the words “inside me,” even if it won’t be offered tonight. This man…she loves this man so much it hurts. But in a good way. Definitely when compared to the last two times she’d fallen in love. It’s the same kind of ache one gets after planting a garden, the kind that promises her from deep in her bones the toil is worth it, for real. _He_ is worth it, and so is she.

Letting go of him, she starts to lift herself up from out of the tub, the water splashing up around the brim once more. “I’m—I’mma get b’hind you, this time. I-I’ll get up first, an’ then you move on up f’r me, please, darlin’.”

“O-okay, l’il mama,” he grunts, complying with her request. He has developed several nicknames for her besides “Kame,” the one she’s had her whole life. “Shawty.” “Baby.” “L’il Mama.” Sometimes “Babe” or “Mama,” for short. It had taken her a while to get used to them, only because of her natural inclination to first interpret words literally—although given their stark difference in size, she is indeed a “shortie”—but now they’ve become more of the irreplaceable notes to the song that is her life. Of course, only he’s allowed to call her any of those. They only sound right when he says them.

Once he’s made room for her behind him, she grabs the rails and slides back into the water. She picks up the oil sitting next to her—coconut-scented—and squeezes a small, pea-sized drop into her palm. Wrapping her arms around his trunk, she guides him in between her legs, which she tucks over each of his thighs.

 _“Whee!”_ yelps B, his back already arching against her.

She holds him to her as tightly as the thickness of his body allows, her breasts crushed against his muscled back and his bottom cupped along her stomach. Strong as a mountain bearing the sea, yet squishy as the octopi he adores. She peppers his skin and spine with kisses before rubbing her cheek against him, taking a moment to savor their collective warmth, their slickened skin sliding with and against each other, and the wetness…inside and out. Despite the racing of her overflowing heart, it’s the most serene she’s felt in days. No matter what doubt whispers in her ear, she's safe with him.

The world can wait until the morning. Now, there’s no one here, or in her thoughts, but him and her.

“D-damn, baby…I knew you were strong all along, but this…this’s turnin’ me on,” he whines. “Nice to see you gettin’ back your confidence. For the next recital, h-hope you can hop the fence.”

Stroking back the locks of his hair with her right hand, she hums, “Good. F’r right now…I wanna play with you.” She lightly cups her hand around the back of his neck, her fingertips caressing the sides of it back and forth since she can’t currently reach his neck with her lips. “I want you t’ feel’s good as you made me feel with our friends…you tell me how you want me t’ touch you. Okay?”

His breath hitching, B nods vigorously. “O-o-okay!”

She smiles into his spine as her hands trail around his body to creep over his inner thighs, practically glowing with heat. Though she’s said it already, she’ll say it again. And again, and again, and again until it becomes as natural as a mantra, as a song, as the breaths she takes.

“I love you, B.”


End file.
